I'm Going to Lose Sebastian
by Ringcaat
Summary: Sebastian, when did you get stubborn? Ditch the portal for half an hour and watch the fireworks show - PLEASE! God... I don't want to lose you...
1. Why Do You Have to Make This Difficult?

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 **A/N:** This is my shortest fan-fic piece to date, and also the first one I'm choosing to post all at once, despite there being multiple chapters. Watch out-there's a little profanity ahead.

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I ASKED like I'd asked him at least a dozen times, in timelines when I bothered to care. Knowing that it wasn't my last chance. Knowing that I could _stand_ to see his slashed, murdered corpse again under the firework-studded sky, even if I'd rather be spared. Now it really was the last chance, though, and I couldn't afford to neglect the little things.

"If it's that important to you," I suggested, "why don't you just watch it regardless?" Trying to sound easy about it, compelling without trying too hard. I knew he'd take the suggestion to heart. He always did, when I'd treated the department right.

But his eyes narrowed and he shook his head, moving on to some paperwork. "We've all got to do our jobs."

Oh god, this hurt. What? He dismissed me so casually, like a guy shrugging off a half-joke, a bad idea. He'd never done this. God damn it, was I going to lose Sebastian? There was only so much deviation I could risk, and this was the _last_ time—the one time through I knew I couldn't do it all over. "No, really," I improvised. "You should treat yourself. Just sneak away for half an hour."

He gave me his irritated look. "You're telling your escort to shirk his duties."

Why _this_ time? What had I done wrong? "Yes," I doubled down, "that's what I'm telling you. Please, Sebastian. Watch the fireworks. It would... mean a lot to me."

Suspicion. Something about the way his cap cocked on his head. "Why exactly does it matter to you if I enjoy my night?"

Because I like you, you dope. Because I don't want the salvation of your race and mine marred by the death of someone who, after all these times, all these trials, can only be described as _close to me._ Damn it, the coordinates are gone, this time is _the time_ , there's no going back. "Please. Just do it. Don't ask me why. Don't be at the portal when the show starts."

His eyes narrowed. "What is this about? You're acting weird."

My mind swam. How much could I say before I screwed everything up? The truth was, I'd probably said too much. Any deviation from the course of events I knew was a risk, and apparently I'd already deviated somehow or he wouldn't be acting like this, and the stakes were _high_ , curse it, way too high-they were everything. I couldn't risk it. Fuck. I couldn't. I was going to lose fucking Sebastian. "Never mind," I mumbled. "Forget it. Just... think about it, okay?"

He stared. His eyes weren't piercing, exactly. They weren't hungry. They were demanding. Demanding purple eyes, like he knew he deserved answers and the world wasn't serving up. Maybe he'd forsake his duty at the last moment and save his goddamn life. It was possible. Adine had pulled out of the flying competition thanks to a seed I'd planted—couldn't this guy do the same?

His voice got lower. "What is this to you?"

"Nothing," I replied, sitting down and breaking eye contact. "We should discuss the investigation."

"Bull. You know something you're not telling me. Are you planning to visit the portal?" He took a step closer. "Are you about to skip out on us, Taylor?"

Back to eye contact, fervent. "No. I promise, I am absolutely not going to do that. I was just worried... worried that if you're on duty, Reza might show up there and attack you." Shit, was I really ad-libbing? How badly was I about to screw things up?

"You know I'm not a rookie, right? You know I'm a seasoned officer?"

 _Why the hell don't dragons ever carry weapons?_ I wanted to yell. "Fine. Forget it—I'm being an idiot. Let's get back to business." I saw his body before my eyes—bleeding, lifeless, tragic. A harbinger of the tragedy to come in the generator building, no matter how things unfolded. But I kept my mouth shut. I had two worlds to save. I had to let this officer go. I had to mourn my friend then and there, because he was about to die and I couldn't save him. Unity would begin on a bitter note, and we'd just have to push through anyway, and _god_ , I realized. I loved him. I loved this guy. Maybe not like I loved Adine, or Lorem, but I loved him like a buddy, and man, this was going to be tough. I wanted him to be there to turn to in the months ahead. To have a hand in keeping things under control.

Finally he turned away, but he kept that look. The cop's look, good at reading people. He was suspicious, but aware that I'd shut down and wouldn't give him any answers. We fell back to the script, thank god, and things for the rest of that day went the way they always had.

I went to bed wondering if I'd managed to plant a seed, and what monstrosity it would grow into if I had.

Had I doomed the world? If I'd just gone around a few more times, would it have made a difference? The more times I lived this story, the better I understood it... but I knew there had to be a point past which I'd tip toward lethargy, and beyond that insanity. Was that point still far off? Should I have just followed Izumi's plan, or even Reza's, and chosen one world or the other?

Drifting off to sleep, my priorities were clear. Sacrifices were necessary to keep civilizations running—I'd been prepared to be one myself. But as I drifted through a cloud of unanswered questions about the upcoming confrontation and the struggles ahead into a landscape of dreams, it turned out my subconscious was concerned a good deal less with the confluence of civilizations and more with the welfare of individuals.

As is so often the case, I forgot all the important, serious dreams only to be left with sunshine and silliness. I found myself kneeling, to some embarrassment, on soft dirt surrounded by short grass, regarding a large nest that Sebastian had apparently built on the open ground, a clutch of fine oblong eggs within. He sat there looking annoyed at me, and I didn't doubt I deserved it.

"Do you need me to go gather food?" I asked, imagining the eggs would hatch soon.

"That'd be nice, yeah. I can't really keep brooding and hunt for food at the same time."

"Do you... need some kind of wild meat, or... can I just go to the store and get a sandwich or something?"

"Sure. A sandwich. Make it something with meat."

I turned to go, but lingered to ask: "Does this mean we're parents now?"

He smiled wryly. "Couldn't think of anyone I'd rather be parents with."

That note of kindness, breaking up the irked tone, was like the sun coming out. That was why I loved this runner. That was why I'd married him. I savored it all the way to the butcher shop, where I bought a box of worm sandwiches and an aurochs carcass between two giant slices of bread. I tried to think up names for the kids on the way back but all my ideas seemed wrong, somehow.

Blackness seemed incongruous, but that's waking up for you. A blinking light showed mercy. The light on the answering machine. Probably Anna calling me back. She was the hardest one to win over, over and over, the toughest leash to hold, since she didn't really care about me. At least she didn't think she did. I didn't know if I wanted to shuck my warm nest of a bed in the middle of the night just to listen to it, though.

I fell back into dreams. They were dreams of home, though, and the struggle for survival and stability. The electric grid failing; battering rams smashing at the walls, though we didn't know who was behind them; alliances crumbling into a state of every man for himself. Things slipping away. I woke up gasping and yearning. But for what?

Sitting up, I lunged for the answering machine to assauge that still-blinking light. It wasn't Anna.

"Taylor? Sebastian here." _I know your voice,_ I muttered subvocally; _you don't need to tell me._ "I've been fretting about this all night. I know you're keeping something from me. And that's your right. You're an ambassador, and ambassadors keep secrets. But it's about me, isn't it? That's what's kept me up to this hour. That's why I can't sleep. You've got a secret about me, haven't you?"

 _Fuck._ Yes, Sebastian, I have a secret about you. It's not even a complicated one. Should I call him? Should I include him in the group plan? If I'd been planning to tell Bryce, why not his deputy? But damn it—I'd told Bryce before. I'd laid the groundwork in other timelines—for all of them. Why had I never told Sebastian? Did I think he wasn't important enough? Had I been trying to protect him?

A chilling thought occurred. If I let him go, I was never going to beat him in a _legitimate_ game of Bastion Breach. I'd been subconsciously looking forward to doing that, I realized. It hurt way more than a simple card game should have. Damn. I _had_ to beat him at Bastion Breach, or at least try.

My heart was pounding harder than it had during the conversation at the station. I paced the room. Smashed eggs in my hands. Peered out into the temperate night, looking for the comet in the sky.

Fuck it all. I wasn't going to let my 'bastian get breached. I picked up the phone.

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	2. Will You Always Feel Unworthy?

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THE SKY was blue and dark, our radiation detector gently clicking. It was before dawn and we were _en route_ to the nearest 'empty shell'-a walled city our best sources told us had fallen. There were thirty of us in the group, including six fully-suited paramilitaries, four earth dragons, three scouts and an elite fire squad. Sebastian was my adjutant—a job he was good at, but which I'd only given him as an excuse to follow me on away missions. Everyone knew it but no one complained.

"Don't worry, we'll take it," said Bryce, lumbering past on his way to the vanguard. "The stories that came out of that place were horrible." This fact seemed to make him happy. "Whatever guard they've got left'll split the moment they smell fire. Count on it."

"Sounds like wishful thinking," I suggested.

"I've been around," he replied. "Got an instinct for when a situation's dangerous. Not feeling it this time." He cracked us a squinty grin and hustled ahead.

Sebastian and I were alone in the middle of the pack, the way we liked it. A flier's shadow passed overhead. "What do you think?" I asked.

He looked at the ground; at me; away, then at me again. I was getting used to this twitch of his—it meant he was thinking something over that wasn't easy. "Dunno. There's a lot more out there we don't know than that we know. And I'm a long way from home."

I envisioned him working a farm back in his hometown, and, as always, put him mentally in a farmer's outfit and big straw hat. It was hard not to grin. "This doesn't even feel like home to me," I agreed.

His gaze lingered on the horizon ahead, then went off to the side. That's when he aired something he'd obviously been meaning to say for a while: "I'm still not sure you did the right thing."

I knew what he meant before I knew that I knew. "What right thing?"

His face rose a smidge. "Saving me. You could have doomed the world."

Oh hell. Was this going to haunt him? "Like hell I could have. I needed you. I realized that in time, thank god."

"You didn't know it was going to work out."

"But it worked out, Bastian. We made it. I was never so happy as I was that day, when I realized we were all going to make it through."

"You told me you'd failed so many times. Reza always got a shot in. Someone always went down."

"Can't you just—"

"It could have all gone sour," he insisted. The way he shaped his eyes gave extra strength to his stare. "I might have done something you didn't expect. Calling me in the middle of the night? I have could have brought down both worlds, being stupid."

"You're anything but stupid."

"Not what I meant. Accidents happen. Didn't you say the timeline was fragile?"

I sighed silently. He was right. It had been a huge risk. But was he really going to ream me for saving his life?

I extended my hand. He glanced at it warily, then slipped his own in. God, he felt smooth. His skin was thicker than mine, but so damn smooth. We didn't lock fingers—we just held palms, and it fit perfect as anything.

"The rebirth of civiilization," I said apropos of nothing. I felt like half a poet.

"Finding a future," he replied. Three words to my four. He just had to one-up me, didn't he?

"The future had to have you in it," I explained. "That's what was gnawing me that night."

"Bull. It didn't need me. I'm one guy out of a hundred million."

 _One_ in _a hundred million, you mean._ No, too easy. " _My_ future needed you in it," I clarified.

His hand tightened; he avoided my eyes.

" _Your_ future needed you in it."

"Selfish," he accused.

I froze. In his mouth, one word could hold such power. "Is that so bad?"

"I don't know," he admitted. Now his eyes locked onto mine. "I don't like selfishness. But when it comes down to it, everyone's got to be selfish at some point. Whether it's enjoying what you've got or expecting paradise in the hereafter..."

"Or being with someone you love," I interjected.

"...Or being with someone you love."

I held his hand tighter and looked him in the eye. "I drew my line."

He breathed in through his snout. "Yeah. You did."

There were clouds ahead. Real clouds, not fallout. Could be rain later. "You don't like my line?"

We walked in silence a while. I could tell everything from his stride, his grip. He had no problem with my line. He just wanted to know where his own was.

Be selfish, Sebastian. For once... be selfish.

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 **A/N:** I enjoyed this game, with reservations. I don't think the time travel makes a ton of sense and I'm not really fond of the endings... but one thing I liked about Angels with Scaly Wings was the characters. I think Adine is my favorite, but it seemed like there was something to be said about understated, simple Sebastian that perhaps hadn't been said. So I wrote this little piece to say it.

Next time I run an unscripted game show in my head, the cast from this game is totally getting in. ;)

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